Ted Grant

Fascism collapsing - Europe's revolution has begun

Mussolini is gone. Fascism in Italy is dead. This fact has
filled with rejoicing the masses of workers and peasants in Italy.
It will be greeted with jubilation by the working class throughout
the world. The fall of Mussolini is the first of great events that
Europe and the world will see in the coming years. It marks the
beginning of the revolutionary upsurge in all the countries of
Europe. Hitler can see in the fate of Mussolini the foreshadowing
of his own doom.

The capitalist press in Britain and America has hypocritically
greeted the fall of the tyrant. Churchill has hurled epithets at
Mussolini. But we remember the paeons of praise he bestowed upon
him in 1927, when in a press interview he said how "charmed"
he was, "by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple
manner, and by his calm detached poise in spite of so many burdens
and dangers." We remember also how he praised Italian Fascism for
"the service your movement has rendered to the whole world."

In spite of their hypocritical rejoicing, Allied Big Business
look, with watchful anxiety on the developments in the Italian
peninsula. The puffed up bullfrog of the Pontine Marshes, as the
Social workers called Mussolini, has passed out of history in the
most ludicrous and inglorious manner. In the hour of danger,
fascism has found not a single supporter out of its boasted legions
throughout the length and breadth of Italy.

Although it has come in a way unexpected to everybody, the fall
of the "Duce" and of fascism is not at all surprising and was
anticipated and predicted by the Marxists. The fascist regime,
which by bestial terror against the Italian workers and peasants,
held them in the totalitarian straightjacket for so many years, was
already in an advanced stage of disintegration and decay. The
period of more than two decades during which fascism held power in
Italy had been the means of exposing it completely in the eyes of
the masses. The corruption and misgovernment, the hunger and want
which fascism had brought the toilers in Italy had already placed
an irrepressible strain on the regime. It was in an attempt to
stave off the brewing revolt of the workers, and peasants that
Mussolini in desperation launched the war against Abyssinia, and
sent the Italian troops to Spain to fight the Spanish republic. But
these wars and the conquest of the "African Empire" did not
alleviate the misery of the Italians but actually intensified
it.

The entry of Italy into the present war provoked no enthusiasm
among the population. The workers and peasants of Italy had
developed an intense hatred of the regime and were completely
apathetic and indifferent to defending its acquisitions and
conquests in Africa. That is why the Italian soldiers did not fight
very hard and surrendered without great resistance. They did not
feel that they had anything worth fighting for. Twenty years of
fascism had done its work. But the military defeats and the
corruption and impotence of the regime began to shake it to its
foundations. The masses began to stir from their long torpor. In
the last few months, despite the rigid censorship, news has been
leaking out of Italy telling of big strikes taking place in all the
industrial towns, of minor uprisings among the peasants, of
mutinies among the Italian soldiers, of demonstrations against the
war and against Mussolini, despite the ruthless suppression, in all
the big industrial cities. The underground revolutionary,
opposition had experienced a re-birth and revival throughout Italy.
Illegal leaflets, pamphlets, papers and proclamations were
receiving a wide circulation among the working class, and the
poorer middle class in the towns and the peasants of the
countryside, according to neutral correspondents stationed in
Italy. It has been obvious for some time that the regime did not
have the slightest support among the people and was regarded with
universal loathing. The recent speech of the Pope warning and
exhorting the Italian people against resorting to revolution was an
indication of the fears and alarm of the ruling class. Revolution
was looming ahead. The reckoning was at hand for the crimes and
impositions of fascism! The great revenge of the working class was
on the order of the day.

Faced with this situation, the capitalists and landowners, the
bishops and the generals, the bankers and the Monarchy - all
who had subsidised Mussolini and his cut throats, who had placed
Mussolini in power as a means of protecting their property and
privileges, began to look frantically for a means of saving
themselves.

They realise that in any event, Italy has lost the war and that
German imperialism has its back to the wall. They are endeavouring
to find a way out when the revolutionary tide is already up to
their necks and threatens to engulf them. The fall of the major
part of Sicily and the imminent invasion of Italy by Allied
imperialism has been the last straw. Italy threatens to become a
battlefield. The capitalists feel on their necks the hot breath of
revolution.

They feel that the only means of saving themselves and salvaging
something from the wreck of fascism is to do a deal with Big
Business in the "democracies". Mussolini is no use to them for this
purpose. The Italian people detest him and the workers of the
democracies would never stand for a deal with Mussolini. For the
capitalists of Britain and America it would be too dangerous.
Mussolini could not serve the purpose of the capitalists any longer
and had even become a dangerous incubus to them. The myth of the
"leader" was easily dispensed with. With no more ceremony than that
with which they would dismiss an office boy, they have booted
Mussolini out. There is nothing surprising in this as Mussolini,
like all fascist dictators was nothing but an obedient clerk in the
service of Big Finance.

But the end of fascism will not see such an easy passage for the
property owners in Italy. They are quite willing to use Mussolini
as a scapegoat for their crimes. Despite them, the fall of
Mussolini will act like a rock which falls down a mountain and
releases an avalanche. The workers and peasants of Italy are on the
march. The Socialist revolution in Europe sees its first faint
dawn. Already in all Italian towns huge demonstrations are taking
place. The masses have been tearing down the insignia and posters
of fascism, blackshirt militia have had their blackshirts torn from
their backs by the infuriated crowds, not willing to tolerate the
emblems of slavery a moment longer, the jails are being assailed by
demonstrating crowds and the political prisoners released. The Red
Flag has been proudly carried at the head of the demonstrating
workers of Milan, who now can openly proclaim their allegiance to
Socialism. In spite of the severe gestures of the new military
ruler Badoglio and of the King who are now in control and have
proclaimed martial law, they cannot prevent the upsurge of the
masses.

New waves of strikes, demonstrations and clashes are inevitable
in the next days and weeks. Even a general strike is not unlikely.
The masses who have rid themselves of Mussolini will not tolerate
his accomplices for long. The conditions which brought about the
fall of Mussolini will still exist and even grow worse. The
landowners and capitalists will attempt to continue the unbearable
exploitation of the masses as under Mussolini. The removal of
Mussolini is the removal of the safety valve. Contrary to the
expectation of the Italian ruling class it will not quieten the
masses and relieve the situation but will release their pent up
energy, despair and hopes and they will surge forward in the
endeavour to obtain an alleviation of their unendurable slavery and
obtain a better world.

The Italian ruling class is using desperate measures in the
attempt to save the situation and they are relying on the Allies to
provide a safeguard against their own masses. They intend behind
the scenes to do a deal with Britain and America and gain the best
terms they can. And already Churchill has refused to give an
explicit refusal against any dealings with the new Government in
Italy, and Roosevelt has condemned wireless broadcasts from America
which attacked Badoglio and the King. This bares the cynicism and
reveals the real aims of the democracies. For the King and Badoglio
are as guilty of the crimes of fascism as Mussolini himself. It was
they who smoothed his path to power and handed him control in Rome.
Daniel Guerin describes the role of Badoglio and the army generals
in the rise of fascism to power in Italy in his book Fascism and
Big Business:

"But it was the army above all that favoured the Black Shirts.
We have seen the role played by the colonel whom the Ministry of
War charged with studying the technical problems of the
anti-socialist struggle. Shortly afterwards, General Badoglio,
Chief Of Staff, sent a confidential circular to all Commandants of
Military Districts stating that the officers then being demobilised
(there were about 60,000 of them) would be sent to the most
important centres and required to join the fasci, which they would
staff and direct. They would continue to receive four-fifths of
their pay. Munitions from the State Arsenals came into the hands of
the fascist bands, which were trained by officers on leave or even
on active service. Many officers, knowing that the sympathies of
their superiors had been won over to fascism, openly adhered to the
movement.

"Cases of collusion between the army and the blackshirts
were more and more frequent. For instance, the Fascio of Trent
broke a strike with the help of an infantry company, and the
Bolzano Fascio was founded by officers of the 232nd infantry."

It is these fine gentlemen who now wish to don the cloak of
"anti-fascism."

The workers of Britain and America have a responsibility to the
workers, peasants and soldiers of Italy. Their gathering movement
of revolt has caused the fall of fascism. Its impact will shake
every country in Europe. The real anti-fascist revolution has
hardly begun. The removal of a few figureheads does not alter the
nature of the regime and the masses will never be content with
this. The movement will spread and broaden and begin to affect
other countries as well. But British and American imperialism will
attempt to destroy the gathering social-revolution in Europe as
they did in the last war, when Churchill organised the armies of
intervention against the young Soviet Republic. The fall of
Mussolini is the beginning of a new epoch, the epoch of Socialist
Revolution. British workers must prevent the ruling class from
going to the rescue of the corrupt and rotting ruling class of
Italy and save them from destruction. Together with the workers of
Europe in the coming epoch we must advance to the overthrow of
capitalism, the Father of fascism and advance to the new society of
Socialism.